


Sans Peur et Sans Reproche

by nonisland



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Eroticized Antagonism, FE3H Kinkmeme, Ferdinand von Aegir's Villain Kink™, M/M, Masturbation, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sexual Content, Sexual Fantasy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, also a political intrigue subplot about grain, the gothic novel mood but textually horny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26534206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland
Summary: But there is often a point—the bleakest moment of the narrative, bringing the reader to the edge of their seat with fear and anticipation—when the herois, temporarily, in dire straits. Brought to the villain’s lair and threatened with various things, to varying degrees of detail. Held captive and imperiled.Lady Rhea would object very strenuously if any of the students under her care came to harm at the hands of another, Ferdinand reminds himself, and tries not to wonder whether Hubertcareswhat Lady Rhea thinks.It would be enormously unsuitable for Ferdinand to be either afraid of or aroused by Hubert’s air of menace, and yet.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 18
Kudos: 113
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	Sans Peur et Sans Reproche

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**3houseskinkmeme**](https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/) [prompt](https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1608.html?thread=1996872) “Ferdinand's pride would never allow him to admit it or show it, but at times, he DOES find Hubert legitimately frightening and creepy. It's just that Ferdinand never backs down and powers through it. But at the same time, Hubert's intimidating aura does make Ferdinand feel... things. […] Ferdinand keeps a brave face through it all but also can't help feeling aroused. How exactly things escalate from there is up to you, I just want some horny Ferdibert with gothic vibes. (I know that "[Overactive Imagination](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21179918)" exists, but I want more along those lines.)”
> 
>  **Also contains:** sexual fantasies about bondage/imprisonment, knifeplay, and breathplay. None are in enough detail that I felt like tagging them would be fair to people _looking_ for them, but they are present in enough detail that if you want to _avoid_ them you’re better off skipping this fic.
> 
> I ended up leaning way more into the “horny Gothic” vibe because I am appallingly easy for Gothic romances and I’m with OP, this pairing really needs more of that. The title translates to “without fear and beyond reproach” and [is a fairly Ferdie mood, in general](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Terrail,_seigneur_de_Bayard), when it’s not being ironic. Immense thanks go to Scott for looking this over and letting me bounce ideas off of him while I tried to sort out how, in fact, Things Escalated From There; any remaining errors are entirely my fault.
> 
> * * *

There are any number of things that it is most unsuitable for a noble to feel.

Cowardice, for example, is entirely unbefitting anyone who has been trusted with the responsibility to lead troops into battle. In much the same way, a conversation, or even an argument, can—indeed must—be nothing to be frightened of.

Ferdinand is not…completely…sure that _a conversation, or even an argument_ sums up the entirety of Hubert von Vestra’s intentions toward him since the Insurrection of the Seven, and especially now. It cannot be helped that Ferdinand wishes to take the most advantage possible of the resources available to him this year—and never again, or at least not in the same way!—in order to bring everything he can to the office of the Prime Minister. It would be entirely irresponsible of him _not_ to, and irresponsibility is another unsuitable thing for a noble.

It cannot even be helped that he has had, more often than he would once have preferred, to challenge Edelgard. Her enigmaticness concerns him and her motivations are opaque. It is the emperor’s right to make their decisions as they see fit, but never _alone_. Self-evident as this is to him it has never occurred to Edelgard, who takes advice from no one—she might take it from Hubert, but Hubert will clearly never offer her any.

And thus it is left to Ferdinand, who seeks only to serve the ultimate good of Adrestia, but who has…well. A few obstacles have flung themselves into his way.

The first of them: Edelgard is exhaustingly talented, and the work of proving that he can be of greater use to her in some field or other is a more time-consuming prospect than anticipated. He has far from given up hope, but he must admit that as he watches her cleave one of the straw training dummies entirely in two with her axe that his service to her is unlikely to be most striking on the battlefield.

The second of them: Hubert von Vestra.

* * *

“I hear you informed our professor that you wished to surpass Lady Edelgard in the use of the axe,” Hubert says one day, voice low and ominous as thunder beyond the horizon.

Ferdinand steels his spine and straightens his shoulders. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

Contempt drips from Hubert’s voice. “Cease your futile efforts, Ferdinand.”

He walks away before Ferdinand can put together a sufficiently witty, poised, and quotable retort.

The threat was not explicit this time. It rarely is; Seteth and the professor have both made it clear that there are standards of behavior which students are expected to follow. This is not a problem for Ferdinand, who acts at all times in an upstanding and honorable manner. He suspects it is something more of a problem for Hubert, who is, after all, of House Vestra.

The Vestra heirs are raised on such things as…well, Ferdinand is not sure of the exact details, but he is aware—has always been aware—that the Minister of the Imperial Household would complete the tasks that should escape his own notice, when he inherited his father’s position.

Espionage, certainly. Assassinations, possibly—Hubert certainly has the looks for it, with his skin nearly white as bone and his hair black as shadow. And the catlike green of his eyes…is poison that color? Well, it is irrelevant, and poison no doubt lacks any specific color or it would be easier to avoid.

Interrogations, perhaps. Yes, it seems…likely…that House Vestra has handled House Hresvelg’s interrogations. One would hardly expect that of one’s emperor. It would tarnish the crown.

Ferdinand has read extensively. He has a great fondness for tales of adventure, though he has always found it a crushing disappointment when the villains are killed instead of redeemed. Truly, it seems a waste of clever minds and dashing swordwork, and when their too-easy deaths are simply in the interests of making the hero’s path smoother that cheapens the very purpose of heroism!

But there is often a point—the bleakest moment of the narrative, bringing the reader to the edge of their seat with fear and anticipation—when the hero _is_ , temporarily, in dire straits. Brought to the villain’s lair and threatened with various things, to varying degrees of detail. Held captive and imperiled.

Lady Rhea would object very strenuously if any of the students under her care came to harm at the hands of another, Ferdinand reminds himself, and tries not to wonder whether Hubert _cares_ what Lady Rhea thinks.

* * *

Another day it is Ferdinand’s attempts to persuade Edelgard of the superiority of one of his new tactics in battle that draws Hubert’s ire. Edelgard is unimpressed, which must simply be because she has failed to consider all of the aspects of Ferdinand’s strategy—relying as it does on the finer aspects of a warhorse’s training, a subject of which she is woefully ignorant—and a grimace from her summons her faithful shadow.

“If you continue to distract Lady Edelgard in the middle of her preparations for this combat,” Hubert says, almost entirely expressionless, “you will hardly like the outcome.”

Again, it is not an explicit threat. Hubert could easily be referring simply to the battle itself, and the consequences if Edelgard loses focus.

Again, Ferdinand feels threatened.

He wishes Hubert would not lower his voice in that manner when attempting to intimidate people. It is, to be sure, intimidating enough, or would be if Ferdinand were prone to being that easily intimidated! In that respect the tactic is wisely-chosen. But it is also…distracting. The way in which the sound of Hubert’s threats curls against his ears… Well.

It is not, Ferdinand reasons with himself, as if Hubert is an unattractive man. It would certainly be less disgraceful to consider one of his classmates to be attractive than it would be to feel afraid of him. There is nothing ignoble about…

He does have to pause and consider, at that point. Certainly, to indulge oneself in mere physical lusts is ignoble. It would be different if he were attracted to some finer aspect of Hubert’s personality, rather than his…what _is_ he attracted to, exactly? One can hardly be drawn to the way in which a man threatens your life.

Not, of course, that Hubert has done so.

Which is just as well! If such a threat were to be made, explicitly, by someone trained by House Vestra to be the emperor’s hand in the shadows, Ferdinand would have to admit defeat and either request intervention from some of the Academy staff—unthinkable, in many ways—or cease doing anything he knows will provoke Hubert—equally unthinkable, as no noble worth the name allows fear to diminish them.

* * *

It is reassuring, in a way, for Ferdinand to consider his racing heart when Hubert looms over him in order to make another edged remark to be merely a symptom of some misguided, adolescent attraction. His father had often warned him against giving away the family name in the grip of such an infatuation, and the sort of error in judgment that would lead to that would be scarcely more catastrophic than this.

“Ferdinand,” Edelgard says one afternoon in the training hall, rubbing the skin under her eyes. The head of her axe rests against the sand. “I have a headache and I do _not_ want to hear a word from you about a duel, or a pamphlet, or _anything_.”

Ferdinand would not so inconvenience a lady. He is opening his mouth to say so when Hubert speaks from directly behind him. “Pester her today, and…”

His voice does not merely curl against Ferdinand’s ears at this distance and from this angle. It sweeps from his neck down his spine, rough as sandpaper; Ferdinand cannot repress a shiver.

It would be cowardly to consider the wide array of weapons around them, or the knife that Hubert carries. It would be cowardly, and so Ferdinand emphatically does not. All that leaves him to be aware of, though, other than his racing heart, is how very _close_ Hubert must be to him to have been able to speak that softly—perhaps no more than a single step away, perhaps even less.

Ferdinand swallows and says, “It would hardly be worthy of the heir of House Aegir to importune a lady in distress.” It takes a few words for his voice to gain strength. “There is no need to remind me of such things! My most sincere wishes for your recovery, Edelgard.”

It is not, Ferdinand considers, a retreat for him to move to the other side of the training hall. It is merely a redistribution of resources—in this case his time.

Hubert watches him go with something that looks like puzzlement softening the edges of his scowl.

* * *

Then there are the summer quarterly reports, sent diligently on by Duke Aegir’s secretary. Ferdinand has never been permitted to trouble himself with the minutiae of the governance of Hrym, but ultimately the entire Empire will be under his hands, and so in addition to the detailed reports of Aegir he has others of the rest of Adrestia, from Hrym to Nuvelle, Varley to the old Hresvelg lands.

He does not care for them.

For the last few years taxes have been rising, while harvest distribution to accommodate weather patterns does not seem to have been…quite as beneficial as it might have been. Ferdinand has been diligently making study of these matters—despite his father’s insistence that he is young enough that he need not yet worry himself about the higher points of mathematics if he does not want—but he can only teach himself so much, and the Officers’ Academy has no focus on governance.

Lorenz has lent him a few treatises, though, and that in combination with the taxation report has Ferdinand frowning in distaste. Parts of Adrestia seem to be being bled of resources— _all_ of Adrestia, indeed, could be being better-managed. The reports of Emperor Ionius’s infirmity have made it all across Fódlan by now. Surely something could be done. Lord Arundel had been born a commoner, after all; although he had done well enough with Arundel itself he lacks the training not to struggle with the entirety of Adrestia, and clearly Emperor Ionius is unable to guide his regent any more. Also clearly, and even more worryingly, Ferdinand’s own father is disinclined to steer the empire back onto the right course.

Should the governance of Adrestia change hands _now_ , instead of forcing the populace to wait for the emperor to die? This is hardly the sort of topic that Ferdinand can raise in class, or even discuss as he does the normal obligations of nobility, so instead he writes it down, blots the ink with sand, and leaves his question in the advice box.

It seems a foolproof plan. He will get an answer without troubling anyone else, or drawing undue attention to himself, and if that answer is anything other than a firm no…

Well, then he can bring it up with Edelgard. She is, to be sure, no older than he himself is—nearly two full months younger, in fact—but he is beginning to wonder how much that truly matters. She is not without compassion or a sense of justice, in spite of how difficult she is to read; he has grown more certain of that, not less, as their schooling continues. She might well be moved by the plight of the citizens of some of her father’s most devoted ministers’ lands.

He continues to puzzle over the summer’s report. Where _is_ some of that extra grain from the county of Bergliez going? Ferdinand frowns again at the columns of numbers, which suggest, unless he has miscounted, that whole caravans’ worth of wheat have vanished into thin air. Perhaps the entire thing is an arithmetical error. He sets the report aside for now, as fruitless to study further without more information, and takes up the problem set on siege engines he is supposed to be working on.

Admittedly, it would be lovely if _he_ were in a position to advise Edelgard, however unofficially at first, whenever she does succeed her father. She will not listen to him yet, of course, and he has yet to prove to her satisfaction that she should, but if he did…if she would just acknowledge that he _can_ , usefully, guide her in her reign—

He hears the door to his room open and close again. Later, he will realize that he was surprised to have had even that much warning. He is on his feet when Hubert stalks across the room to him—catlike, again—but does not manage not to be trapped between Hubert’s lean frame and the edge of his own desk.

“What is the meaning of this?” Ferdinand demands, because it is that or back down, and he refuses to back down. That sense of threat is sharper now, alone in his room without witnesses, and so too is the thrill that twists around it. Anything could happen, here. Of course what _will_ happen is simply that Hubert will say something almost but not quite reasonable, and—

Ferdinand really is pinned in place. Hubert rarely participates in hand-to-hand training, but he has clearly learned a few things nonetheless. His arms bracket Ferdinand’s, denying him easy leverage to shove. Their legs nearly touch; the desk bites into the backs of Ferdinand’s thighs. The one good thing, Ferdinand thinks distantly, still with an attempt to be reasonable in every way about this, is that it is very difficult to stab someone from this position without assistance, and impossible to cast a spell without moving first, so there really is nothing to actually be afraid of.

Hubert is…extremely close. His voice is barely more than a whisper, so low that it drags across Ferdinand’s skin like a bow over the strings of a violin. “My duty, and my pleasure, is to protect Lady Edelgard from _any_ threat. Do not think that your rank will protect you from the consequences of your continuing sedition.”

“W…what,” Ferdinand says. He is not proud of the break in his voice there, but really, he is only human, and more things than he would prefer to need to deal with at once are happening. The exchange has the unreality of a dream—one which could easily turn either to nightmare or to the sort that has him waking up, if he is lucky, _before_ he spends into his sheets.

“Your little letter,” Hubert says. “You may have plans to replace Lady Edelgard, but I assure you—”

Ferdinand is, embarrassingly, breathless. Even he could not say for sure whether fear or arousal tightens his lungs and sets his pulse to galloping. It might even be both, the two twisting around each other and strengthening as they do. “Wait,” he manages, mind slow and useless. “What…letter?”

Hubert moves back just enough to pull a sheet of paper, crackling with stiffness, from a pocket somewhere in his uniform jacket. “Do you deny this is your handwriting? You did not even attempt to disguise it.”

It is most certainly Ferdinand’s handwriting. It is, he realizes, the letter he had written asking what to do about the deductions he thinks he has made from those blasted reports. “No, but I—”

“Your boldness,” Hubert says, letting the letter fall as he blocks Ferdinand in again—only then does Ferdinand realize he could have _moved_ , in that span of time, instead of continuing to stand there as helpless as if Hubert’s attention itself was a physical force—“is alarming. That you would raise this question with a near-stranger, openly, suggests that your plans are far more advanced than mere idle boasting.”

What a ludicrous misunderstanding. Relief makes Ferdinand giddy; their continuing closeness heightens that giddiness. Speaking of which, it might be better for his dignity and their mutual comfort if he can persuade Hubert to back away a little, as Ferdinand’s own physical reaction to the situation is beginning to make itself insistent. The skirts of his uniform jacket offer some visual concealment, but it is not Hubert’s eyes he is worried about. “You do not underst—”

“Really.”

Ferdinand cannot help the shiver that rolls through him. His hands tighten on the edge of the desk, though he is _fairly_ sure his legs will hold him without that assistance.

“Exactly,” Hubert says, still in that dangerous whisper that thrills along Ferdinand’s nerves. The sibilant might as well be a touch.

The effort of holding perfectly, perfectly still—their legs really are almost tangled together, and Ferdinand is fairly sure he can feel the heat of Hubert’s thighs against his own—is distracting enough that Ferdinand fails to maintain a dignified silence. A sound that he refuses even inside his own head to call a whimper, though he will admit to a moan, escapes on one of his ragged, uneven breaths before he can stifle it.

Hubert’s gaze sharpens further.

Ferdinand can feel the skin of his face heating with embarrassment, though he is already feeling more than a little warm as a whole. Still, he has been trained for years in decorum; he has dedicated himself to maintaining a faultlessly noble mien at all times. He is more than capable of managing a simple sentence. He manages it: “I meant the regent.”

“I…excuse me?” Hubert straightens a little, eyes raking over Ferdinand’s face.

They are still so, so close. Ferdinand gulps air and says, still breathlessly, “The regent. I had…a report.” He cannot remember a single blessed thing about the report. He wonders how many knives Hubert carries on his person, and whether the desk is the right height for—no, he _really_ must not. “Taxes!” he says, in a triumph of reason over the insistent beat of his pulse in his ears, his throat, his cock. “I have…if you would let me up, I will show you.”

Hubert does take a single step back, looking ever so slightly uncertain for the first time since he entered Ferdinand’s room. “You expect me to believe that after all your attempts at sedition, _this_ one is not meant against Lady Edelgard.”

Ferdinand collapses into his chair again, grateful for the concealing bulk of the desk. “It is…” He sorts quickly through papers, setting aside his problem set and finding the summer reports again beneath it. “Here.” His hands are shaking as he twists around and holds it out. Hubert can hardly fail to notice that, but there is absolutely nothing Ferdinand can do about it.

“I…” Whatever Hubert was about to say, he does not; he frowns as he plucks the sheaf of papers neatly from Ferdinand’s grasp.

 _I am not afraid_ , Ferdinand wants to insist, but that would only raise further questions, which he is equally disinclined to answer. He sits very, very still, with his hands pressed so flat to his desk that he can feel the strain radiating up his arms, and concentrates only on slowing his breathing. His heartbeat is beyond his control.

“Hm,” Hubert says finally. He drops the report on the corner of Ferdinand’s desk. “You object to Lord Arundel’s governance?”

“Yes?” Ferdinand attempts. He is fairly sure he objects to Lord Arundel’s governance, though at the moment he is most sure that he is still very aroused, and that he does not wish to have a political debate with Hubert while they stand—or in his case sit—in his bedroom.

Hubert actually laughs—a low sound that might equally well be genuine amusement or a prelude to another threat. “How interesting. I wonder, are you clever enough to think of that as an excuse?”

This time Ferdinand does not manage to scrape words together. He cannot figure out what Hubert is driving at, and he is unwilling to admit ignorance.

“I will be watching you,” Hubert continues, in that low, low tone again. “If you have lied to me to save your wretched skin, it will go very poorly for you.”

Ferdinand’s cock throbs against the fall of his trousers. He locks his teeth against the sound trying to force its way out of his throat. But he must say something, he cannot let that go unanswered— “I am not…a liar.” If the goddess is merciful he sounds angry.

“Hm,” Hubert says again. He turns to leave—goddess be thanked, she _is_ merciful—and pauses with his hand on the door. “If you are this easy to frighten, you had better rethink any plans you have.”

He leaves before Ferdinand can put together a protest, a denial, a—

Ferdinand gives Hubert the length of time a few panting breaths take to re-open the door. When he does not return, Ferdinand starts tearing at the buttons of his gloves with fingers gone thick and clumsy, more numb with heat than they ever have been with cold. His hands are shaking, and the buttons are small and delicate. He gives up.

The buttons on his trousers are larger, and the ties holding his smallclothes closed loosen easily enough. His cock pushes free, flushed and damp, and when he wraps his hand around it he hisses in shocked pleasure at the strange smoothness of silk here. He has never—he has _always_ taken his gloves off.

If it were Hubert’s hand, now—and it is easy, with that unfamiliar pressure against his skin, to imagine that it might be someone else’s touch entirely; someone else who was wearing this style of glove even before Ferdinand himself did—

Oh, Ferdinand thinks, dizzy with lust and hips stuttering off the chair as he rocks into the grip of his hand, he is in very bad trouble here.

He should not be attracted to Hubert von Vestra, who openly loathes him, at all.

He should not, he should _not_ , be thinking about what exactly House Vestra trains its scions to do, all the dark promise in Hubert’s voice that is surely meant as a threat—about secret and windowless rooms, about chains anchored in the walls, about being left there to wait—about twisting against his restraints until he falls back into their hold, helpless but still not defeated—about the door creaking open and Hubert watching him, backlit and enigmatic, until he steps closer and reaches out a hand and tilts Ferdinand’s face up, about the flat of one of Hubert’s many knives resting against his bared throat with the edge a prickling threat every time he moves—

Ferdinand comes with a bitten-off cry, curling around himself as he spends over his gloves. He does not bother to straighten, but rests his forehead against his desk.

He should be more worried about this, but it is _always_ that way in the adventure novels. Oh, not the…his seed is starting to soak through the silk, and he should remove them and be sure to add himself to tonight’s laundry roster. Not that part, but the rest. The menace, the defiance, the challenge posed by the crisis. He does not _actually_ want Hubert to cut his throat, he is fairly sure. He wants Hubert to decide _not_ to.

His cock gives another twitch of interest at that thought.

In a way, just as had already happened. It would have been so easy for Hubert to push him back onto the desk instead of demanding to see the report, to trust Ferdinand’s word for it. To unbutton the falls of their trousers—oh, he really needs to take his gloves off, once is quite enough.

Bare-handed, common sense begins to return to Ferdinand. He can hardly spend the entire evening pleasuring himself to thoughts of being either interrogated or fucked by his classmate, whom he will have to see again tomorrow. The problem set on siege engines will not do itself, and he cannot neglect it—it is his duty and his privilege to take every advantage offered to him by the Officers’ Academy. He _will_ concentrate on his work. He has never had this much difficulty concentrating on his work before.

He makes it through three problems before his mind tosses Hubert’s parting “I will be watching you” back at him, as well as the image of his own spent cock subsiding into his hand. What if Hubert had walked back into the room after all? What if he had—

With grim diligence, Ferdinand completes the fourth problem. One more to go. These last two answers are likely to be utter nonsense, but that is what they have a professor for. He will check them again in the morning.

_If a mangonel requiring a crew of ten can fire a projectile weighing thirteen stones every minute, while a trebuchet requiring a crew of two can fire a projectile weighing sixteen stones every six minutes over the same distance, what is the best way to…_

Ferdinand pushes the problem set away across his desk and unfastens his trousers again. He will finish it in a moment, once he can think clearly once more. There is no sense in doing it only to do it poorly, after all.

What if Hubert _had_ walked back into the room? Or had never left it in the first place? What if he had deduced the real reason for Ferdinand’s breathlessness, the tremor in his hands, the strain in his voice—what if he had moved that hairsbreadth closer while he had Ferdinand pinned against the desk, and the length of his thigh had pressed against Ferdinand’s arousal? If he had moved those clever long-fingered hands atop Ferdinand’s and held them down, or—oh, goddess—

Ferdinand’s cock is dripping with need, smoothing the frantic pull of his hand. He is as achingly hard as if he had not just done this an hour ago. If Hubert had wrapped his hands around Ferdinand’s throat instead, thumbs crossing at the hollow in the front, as he leaned even closer and said…what? Something, something about how brazen Ferdinand’s scheming had been, but this time with Ferdinand’s pulse beating against his fingers, and then—the victory of rightness again, Hubert’s face going unguarded with pleasant surprise and his thigh still firm between Ferdinand’s…

Ferdinand barely manages to get his free hand over the head of his cock in time to keep from ruining his trousers, which he does _not_ want to wash at this hour of the night. Nor does he want to explain why he is wearing his formal trousers to class. He wipes his hand clean on a handkerchief, adds it to the sadly growing laundry pile, and returns one more time to the problem set.

* * *

He absolutely cannot stop himself from blushing when he sits down at breakfast the next morning. Rationally, Hubert has no way of knowing, or if he does know has no one but himself to blame for it. Ferdinand finds rationality is of little comfort.

Dorothea gives him a suspicious look. Hubert, absorbed in the preparation of another cup of coffee, fortunately does not notice.

“Good morning!” Ferdinand says brightly to the table at large, as simply pressing on ahead as best he can seems the best choice. “What a lovely day it seems today, do you not agree?”

“It’s raining,” Edelgard says, frowning at him. “Are you…never mind.”

Ferdinand had not paid much attention to the color of the light through the windows. “Rain is a magnificent thing for the fall plantings.” He is not completely sure that it is, but he _is_ sure that nobody at this particular table is likely to contradict him. Lorenz would probably know, but Lorenz is across the dining hall. “We can hardly judge the weather simply by our own comfort!”

“No, I think we can, if we’re making small talk,” Dorothea says.

Linhardt picks his head up off the table. “Must we?”

Ferdinand exhales in relief and turns his attention to his eggs and toast as the conversation moves on, becoming securely about things that are very much not him and his own strange behavior. After a moment he becomes aware of the prickling feeling of being observed, and looks up to find Hubert watching him, thoughtfully but without harshness, over the rim of his coffee cup.

Well. Ferdinand wraps his courage around himself and says, brightly, “Do you require something, Hubert?”

“Hardly,” Hubert says, vanishing behind the coffee cup. “I am merely…attempting to solve a puzzle.”

“Do let me know if you solve it,” Ferdinand says, still brightly. This is what he would have done, normally, if he were trying to be polite. He has made it this far pretending that everything is exactly as normal, and he shall continue to do so.

Hubert’s laugh this time is almost certainly sinister, and it is Ferdinand’s own ill luck that he still thrills at the sound. “Oh, you will know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Do they spend the next few months with Hubert (who has no idea that he’s hot and would assume he was being pranked if he were told about *gestures up* This) trying to figure out if Ferdinand is a viable co-conspirator worth the risk of bringing on board the whole Flame Emperor deal and Ferdinand like “…are we…courting now? he is spending so much time with me? what is HAPPENING does he KNOW what do i DO”? Entirely possible. Do I have any confidence in my ability to write at least 20K of political intrigue and miscommunications and eventual mutual pining while juggling [constance von nuvelle talking about the sun voice] _the timeline…_? Alas, I do not. But you should imagine it happening if you want.
> 
> The word problem does not have a solution (it’s missing information about a. the target and b. how much wood/how many siege engines you have access to). I did this both because I hate math and because I didn’t want to nerd snipe anyone right in the middle of the actual point of the kinkmeme fill. I did more research on siege engines than I am proud of under the circumstances but still had to make some things up; everything that actually made it into the fic is just [from Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet#Comparison_of_different_artillery_weapons), or else, as noted, invented.
> 
> I adopted Ferdinand’s genuine fondness for storybook villains into my headcanon from [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Marks/profile)[**Marks**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Marks/)’s lovely “[Growing Pains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262871),” which is, uh, very tonally different from this.


End file.
